Lack of Vitamin D has always
been
found among the elderly and the housebound. Deficiency of Vitamin D is
related to higher rates of breast, ovary, colon, and prostate cancer;
increased incidence of multiple sclerosis, progression of
osteoarthritis, impairment of the immune response, high blood pressure,
mood disorders including serious depression, Type 1 diabetes and
tuberculosis. Lack of Vitamin D appears to be a prime factor in the
rising incidence of depression along with a lack of omega 3 fatty
acids. Patients with Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis,
congestive heart failure, and Alzheimer's disease have
all been found to have significant deficits of Vitamin D.

In an important study from
the March
19, 1998 New England Journal of Medicine, 290 patients admitted to
Massachusetts General Hospital were studied for evidence of Vitamin D
deficiency. 57 % of these patients were found to be Vitamin D deficient
and in 22% the deficiency was severe. In a subgroup of 77 healthy
patients with an average age of 44 years, 42% were Vitamin D deficient
and in 11 % the lack was severe.

A surprising and
disconcerting finding
in this study was that 46 % of those regularly taking vitamin
supplements were found to be lacking adequate Vitamin D in their blood.
Research by Dr. Reinhold Vieth appears to unravel this puzzle. Dr.
Vieth and his colleagues at the University of Toronto have learned that
any amount of vitamin D
below 800[1] IU daily was unable to prevent
Vitamin D deficiency from occurring. He
thinks that the proper dosage of
vitamin D may be 1200 IU. or more.. Very few vitamin preparations in
the U.S. contain this quantity of Vitamin D so you will need to
supplement your intake with additional Vitamin D until you find an
adequate vitamin preparation...

Osteoporosis is now being
diagnosed in
women in their 40's. These patients exhibit intense bone pain, muscle
weakness, and even difficulty in walking. Some
women with fibromyalgia who have similar symptoms have been discovered
to have lower than normal bone density, which is very suspicious of
osteoporosis. 20 % of the
patients in rheumatologists offices are suffering from fibromyalgia,
which is a very common and very disabling problem for many women. All
persons suspected of fibromyalgia should have Vitamin D blood levels
checked. Therapy is easy with Vitamin D, calcium and magnesium..

Dr. Plotnikoff of the Univ.
of
Minnesota Medical School measured 25 (OH) D [calcidiol] blood levels in
150 patients in a chronic pain clinic. He
discovered that 100 % of Black, Hispanic, East African and American
Indians were Vitamin D deficient[2]
. 93 % of all patients were Vitamin D deficient. Young
women in their childbearing years were found to be at the greatest risk
for not being diagnosed. Many of
these patients had been having pain for years without ever having
Vitamin D levels checked. This suggests that chronic
musculoskeletal pain is often caused by undiagnosed vitamin D deficiency.
Pigmented individuals appear to be at greater risk because they do not
absorb Vitamin D nearly as well as white persons through their
skin..Almost certainly the widespread use of sunglasses and sun screens
is contributing to this problem.

A serious problem in the
elderly is
falls. These falls often cause hip fractures which frequently prevent
the patient from returning to independent living. Specific receptors
for Vitamin D have been identified in muscle tissue. Vitamin
D deficiency results in muscle weakness and impaired balance which
contributes to falls in the elderly.
A 49 % reduction in falls[3] was found in a geriatric facility
containing 120 elderly women when 1200 mg of Vitamin D was added to
1200 mg. of calcium given to all women. Muscle testing disclosed
significant improvement in the group getting 1200 units of Vitamin D
when compared to those getting only calcium. Magnesium
should always be provided in the therapy of osteoporosis as failure to
do so can make the bone structure even more fragile..

Ultraviolet light initiates
the
conversion of a Vitamin D precursor in the skin (precholesterol) to
cholecalciferol a substance that is changed in the liver into
calcidiol. After passage through the kidney the calcidiol is converted
into calcitriol. Calcitriol regulates calcium metabolism in the body
and has important beneficial effects on human development, diabetes,
hypertension, heart disease, autoimmune illnesses, 13 different cancers
and depression.

A young white male makes
20,000 units
of Vitamin D within minutes of whole body exposure to the summer sun
(before redness of skin appears). This is five times the amount of
Vitamin D considered capable of initiating toxic reactions[4]
by the Institute of Medicine proving that these guidelines are set far
too low..Dark skinned individuals need 5 to 10 times longer in the sun
to produce an equivalent amount of vitamin D depending on the extent of
their pigmentation.

Blood
levels of calcidiol [25(OH)D] below 35 ng/ml are found in 70 % of U.S.
citizens. Normal values are
considered to be between 35 and 50 ng/ml. Life guards and persons
living near the equator have values near 50 ng/ml. Toxicity from excess
Vitamin D during sun exposure does not occur because
ultraviolet light degrades Vitamin D after 20,000 units have been
produced thus leading to a steady state and no toxicity..

Avoid sunburn which can
injure the
skin. Sunscreens with a protection factor of 8 block 95 % of vitamin D
production. With equal sun exposure, an 80 year old produces only 50 %
of the Vitamin D made by an 8 year old.

Living in cities, working in
factories, screening out ultraviolet light with glass windows, wearing
more clothing than when farming, using sun screens and dark glasses all
contribute to the deficient Vitamin D levels found today. One of the
routes for ultraviolet light to be received by the body is through the
eye as well as the skin. Ultraviolet deprivation may be responsible for
the dramatic increase in cancer seen in certain parts of Africa. Albert
Schweitzer noted that when he arrived in Africa the natives did not
wear sunglasses and that he
rarely saw cancer. Later natives
could be seen pulling their canoes down the river wearing sunglasses
and not much else. The failure to receive ultraviolet through their
eyes because of sunglasses made them vulnerable to ultraviolet light
deficiency as black skinned
persons do not absorb much ultraviolet through their skin.

John Ott has done monumental
work in
the field of photobiology. This work has proven that the full spectrum
of visible light (and some of the invisible) is absolutely essential
for good health. Ott has shown that light is just as important a
photosynthesizing mechanism in animals as it is in plants; only the
mechanism is different.

In the June 1990 issue of
The Reader's
Digest Dr. David Ruben wrote an article about ultraviolet light blaming
600,000 cases of skin cancer annually on this form of light. He goes on
to say that exposing their bodies to the sunlight is one of the
riskiest things Americans can do.

Blaming the ultraviolet
light from the
sun for skin cancer appears to be incorrect. The skin cancer problem is
not caused by ultraviolet light. In Australia skin cancer is two times
more common in persons eating margarine than persons eating butter.
Butter contains an ingredient that appears to prevent the development
of skin cancer. The synthetic fats found in margarine, salad oils and
cooking oils are very hard for the body to dispose of. This leads to
massive amounts of free radicals, immune injury, high cholesterol,
cancer, obesity and arteriosclerosis in persons consuming these
abnormal fats. The skin cancer seen in Australia occurs more commonly
in office workers than those employed outdoors such as lifeguards.

John Ott states that we need
more
ultraviolet light than we obtain from artificial light through windows.
Ultraviolet light of the short wave length, germicidal ultraviolet, is
mostly filtered out by the earth's atmosphere. This
fear of getting too much ultraviolet light is creating a deficiency of
an essential life supporting energy.

Ott further relates that
there is
probably a relationship between chronic diseases and lack of sunlight.
"My studies have shown that light is a nutrient, similar to all the
other nutrients we take in through food and that we need the full
spectrum range of natural sunlight". If human skin is not exposed to
solar radiation (direct or scattered) for long periods of time,
disturbances will occur in the physiological equilibrium of the human
system. The result will be disorders of the nervous system, vitamin D
deficiency, weakening of the body's defenses, depression and an
aggravation of chronic diseases".

He calls this state
malillumination
(lack of necessary sunlight). This develops when wavelengths are
missing in various types of artificial light or are filtered from
natural light passing through window glass, windshields, tinted
eyeglasses, smog, and sun tan lotions. The minerals and chemicals in
the individual cells of our bodies that would normally be nourished by
the missing wavelengths remain
in the equivalent of darkness.

In
other words energy cannot be extracted from food materials if the
proper wavelengths of light are not available to help break them down
chemically.

Dr. Ott has called the
attention of
the medical profession to the dangers of using tinted eyeglasses. He
has perfected gray-tinted lenses that will allow the passage of all
wavelengths of light. The majority of sunglasses available today do not
permit full transmission of light and are clearly
detrimental to the health of the wearer.

Many women are unable to
become
pregnant because of the use of tinted sunglasses in Ott's opinion.. He
advised 6 infertile women to throw away their sunglasses and they all
became pregnant. Estrogen, an
essential hormone for conception, has a sharp peak in absorption of
ultraviolet light at 280 manometers. This frequency of light is usually
filtered out by sunglasses and this causes failure of proper activation
of estrogen with inability to conceive.

Dr. Ott did another study
with cancer
patients, which showed clear
prolongation of life. He advised
15 cancer patients to spend as much time as possible in sunlight and to
avoid artificial light sources including television. 14 of the 15
showed no progression of their tumors and several actually showed
improvement. The one person who failed to improve had misunderstood the
directions and continued to
wear sunglasses.

Seasonal
Affective Disorders (SAD)

John Ott's work Seasonal
Affective
Disorders has become recognized as a common well accepted syndrome
which occurs in fall and winter in northern countries due to light
deficiency. Patients with this disorder develop fatigue; sadness,
excessive sleeping, overeating, carbohydrate craving and weight gain
during the short days of winter. These changes can be reversed by
extending the daily light period using 5 to 6 hours of bright, 2500
lux, full spectrum light
either in the morning and evening hours or evening hours alone. The
anti-depressive effects of this treatment take two to four days to
appear, and relapse occurs in the same number of days if treatment is
stopped. These behavioral improvements are believed to be caused by
decreased secretion of melatonin from the pineal gland in a light
enhanced environment. SAD affects only 1.4 % of persons living in
Florida, whereas the in New Hampshire, the incidence approaches 10 %.
Alaska also manifests a 10 % incidence of SAD in the winter months.

Dr. Niels Finsen, a Danish
researcher,
won the Nobel Prize in 1903 for his discovery that the tuberculosis
like skin disease called lupus vulgaris could be cured in 98 % of cases
by ultraviolet light. To learn whether this success was due to a direct
effect of the ultraviolet light on the affected skin or was simply due
to benefits from ultraviolet on the immune system he treated some
patients by exposing only unaffected
normal skin to ultraviolet light.
These patients recovered equally well as those whose skin lesions were
directly treated proving that the immune system was being helped by the
ultraviolet rays. Recent research has revealed that Vitamin D has
profound activity as an anti-oxidant as well as it's mineral absorptive
and other benefits.

A physician named Auguste
Rollier
established a series of chalets in the Swiss Alps and other locations
to treat individuals with tuberculosis in the early 1900s. All patients
were exposed to the sun for 3 hours daily in the summer and 4 hours
daily in the winter without permitting sunburn. This exposure to
sunlight was able to convert sick deformed children with spinal
tuberculosis into healthy energetic children with straight backs over a
period of 18 months. This therapy also worked for abscesses, bone
infections, rickets, anemias and non healing wounds as well, probably
by the immune stimulation from Vitamin D.

It is hard to imagine
persons living
in a hot sun filled desert not getting enough Vitamin D but a recent
research paper from Saudi Arabia establishes that this occurs. 300
patients with chronic back pain and low levels of [25(OH)D] were
treated with 5,000 to 10,000 units of cholecalciferol daily in a study
reported in the respected journal Spine. After 3 months of therapy all
had return of [25(OH)D] values[5]
to normal. None of the patients developed high blood calcium levels and
all had improvement in their back pain.

Therapy for the deficiency
of Vitamin
D can be accomplished with sunlight, sun lamps or Vitamin D
supplements. Unfortunately many persons are being told to avoid
sunlight. These persons will need 3000 to 5000 units of cholecalciferol
daily to maintain calcidiol levels in a healthy range. Persons with
sarcoidosis, granulomatous diseases, lymphoma, cancer and overactive
parathyroid glands (hyperparathyroidism) should not take Vitamin D
except under physician supervision. Cholecalciferol is found in health
food stores.

Some authorities are now
recommending
that an annual blood test of calcidiol be obtained by all persons
because of the high frequency of Vitamin D deficiency. Some health
product companies have started raising Vitamin D in their supplement
products to 600 or 800 I.U. daily. Probably the level of 1200 I.U.
daily as suggested[6]
by Dr. Reinhold Vieth rv@mtsinai.on.ca
will turn out to be preferable.

Dr.
James A. Howenstine is a board certified specialist in internal
medicine who spent 34 years caring for office and hospital patients.
Curiosity sparked a 4 year study of natural health products when 5 of
his patients with severe rheumatoid arthritis were able to discontinue
the use of methotrexate (chemotherapy agent) after trying an extract of
New Zealand mussels for the therapy of severe rheumatoid arthritis.

Dr.
Howenstine is convinced that natural products are safer, more effective
and less expensive than pharmaceutical drugs. This research led to the
publication of his book 'A Physicians Guide To Natural Health Products
That Work'. This book and the recommended health products are available
from www.naturalhealthteam.com
and by calling 1-800-416-2806 U.S.A.

"Living in
cities, working in factories, screening out ultraviolet light with
glass windows, wearing more clothing than when farming, using sun
screens and dark glasses all contribute to the deficient Vitamin D
levels found today."